1 dead, 3 injured in sword attack on Indonesian police headquarters

The individuals crashed a vehicle into the entrance of the Riau province police headquarters in Pekanbaru, on the island of Sumatra, and began attacking officers, National Police Spokesman Setyo Wasisto said. Police shot and killed the four suspected terrorists, he added.

The driver of the van then attempted to the flee the scene, hitting and killing one police officer, he added. Two police officers and one local journalist were also injured in the attack.

Wasisto said the driver has been apprehended and was now being detained at Riau Police Precinct. Police found the van not far from the location of the attack and searched it for possible explosive materials

The attack is the latest in a spate of attacks in the country. On Sunday a radicalized family carried out three suicide bombings on Christian churches in the East Java city of Surabaya, claiming ten lives and injuring over 40 other people.

Later that day an explosion killed a mother and her teenage daughter in a housing complex in a suburb of the city before the father of the family, spotted by police holding a detonator, was shot and killed.

The Sunday attacks were followed by another suicide bombing involving a family, this time on a Surabaya police station.

Four members of that family were killed in that attack, which wounded ten people. All three incidents involved the children of the three families, who knew each other and studied the Quran together, police said Tuesday.

Indonesia National Police Chief Tito Karnavian told reporters Monday that officers were working on the assumption that the attacks followed a directive from ISIS central command to avenge the imprisonment of former leaders of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, an Indonesian jihadi group that supports ISIS.